Heliophilia; d.m

XXXVII

And without giving myself a second to think, I found myself on that very hillock in front of the Wallace Mansion.

Of all the places on the planet, I'd chosen Adele's house, and as I took my steps to the front door, all I could hope for was that I wouldn't regret it.

—

"Are you sure you put it there? Because it's pretty obvious that there's nothing here." Adele said, looking under the table near the window for the hundredth time.

I took a deep breath, rolling my eyes — sometimes she was unbearable.

"Adele, I've already said a hundred times that I put it right on this table. You're not helping with your conversations." I got up from my knees and sank into a chair in the corner of the room, feeling unaccountably lost.

My ring, which was a memory of my mother, which my father had once given me — was lost, it was nowhere to be found, and I felt the haze of self-loathing envelop me again.

How could I lose a ring by putting it on the table before going to bed? It was as if it had simply disappeared — disappeared into thin air, and I felt so desperate that the question even crossed my mind, "Did the ring even exist?"

"I do not know where else to look for it, we have already looked at everything and everywhere." Adele muttered without taking her eyes off the floor, and tucked her wand, which she used to light up all the dark corners, into her pocket, plopping down on the bed.

I had lived in her house for two days, not counting when I first came to her doorstep, when I was on the verge of hysteria, wearing only my pajamas, through which the November cold air crept, leaving frosty marks on my skin; and my gaze must have been mad or doomed, because, opening the door, Adele led me into her warm house without further questions, kindly providing one of the rooms.

History repeated itself — I, like her, had lost my parent, and I didn't want to be left alone in the house where his body had lain cold and soulless for six hours. I didn't want to be alone, and my soul, for some reason, was drawn to Adele, believing that I could find in her what I needed then — peace and tranquility.

And she gave it to me gratuitously, helping me get stronger so that I was ready to go back to Mariel.

But when I felt that the time had come, that it was time for me to stop hiding from everyone and, first of all, from myself and my feelings, everything went wrong.

The loss of the ring left us vulnerable, and when we heard the sound of broken glass and cracked wood surfaces from below, it was too late to do anything.

"What was that?" Adele muttered as she jumped out of bed, her hand once again gripping the wand tightly in front of her.

I didn't know what it was, but I had a hunch, a terrible premonition, which eventually turned out to be true.

Her house quickly began to fill with Death Eaters, who seemed to be everywhere, even inside the walls, because their voices and the noise of the destruction they had caused could be heard from all sides — we only had a few seconds before they would have found us there.

"Run." I said, grabbing Adele's hand and running out of the room, heading for the opposite side of the house, which Adele said was abandoned.

"They'll destroy the whole house."

Those words said by Adele, as we ran down the corridor, stumbling over the thick-pile carpets, farther and farther away from the noise, straight into the old cellar where the wine barrels were — those words made my stomach clench.